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Weathersbee: How to help children make sense of other children being shot? You can't!

Stuffed animals are leaned against a utility pole Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2020, across the street from the scene of a shooting in the 700 block of Josephine Street in Memphis. Jadon Knox, 10, was killed in the shooting.(Photo: Max Gersh / The Commercial Appeal)

Imagine the last maple leaf on the tree in winter.

As that leaf, now brown and brittle, finally falls from the limb to the snowy ground, it proudly glimpses the strong tree whose life it nurtured for four seasons.

I've read the story of that leaf, Freddie, to children, from a book titled "The Fall of Freddie the Leaf: A Life Story for All Ages." Written in 1982 by Leo Buscaglia, it's meant to help children understand the death of a grandparent, or another elderly loved one, or someone who had been sick for a long time.

It helps children view death as cyclical; as a part of life that won’t catch up to them until they’ve had children and grandchildren, or, like Freddie, contributed in some way to the world.

Jadon Knox holds up artwork with the letter "J" illustrated on it at Aspire Hanley Elementary School.(Photo: Photo courtesy of Earl Wilson)

That’s because they were fatally shot over the weekend. Killed before they, like Freddie the Leaf, could grow out of the springtime of their lives, become summered and seasoned, and leave behind something for their families, or their communities, to love.

That’s because what happened to Jadon, Ashlynn and Lequan wasn’t part of a cycle of life, but one of death.

And that, to me, is one of the cruelest legacies of when a child, a child just being a child in a car, or in his or her home, or in a yard, is killed by gun violence.

One can’t use poignant stories like “The Fall of Freddie the Leaf,” or stories that can explain, say, an accidental death, to soothe classmates and loved ones over the death of someone who has been randomly shot and killed by an instrument designed solely to kill people.

You just can't.

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Toys are scattered around the front yard of a home in the 6800 block of Kirby Hills Cove on Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2020, at the scene of a shooting in Memphis where a six-year-old girl and a 16-year-old boy were shot and critically injured the evening before. Both juveniles died from their injuries.(Photo: Max Gersh / The Commercial Appeal)

Meaning that this violence not only stole these children’s lives, but it also stole any way to help other children make sense of why their lives are over.

Nonetheless, Molly Nelson, site director at the Universal Parenting Place at the Perea Preschool at Klondike Elementary, is trying.

Nelson has started a community grief group in the area to help people cope with deaths that don’t make sense; violent deaths like the ones that claimed Jadon, Ashlynn and Lequan over the weekend.

But, Nelson admits, it’s tough.

“I cried about it (the deaths of the children),” Nelson said. “We can’t make sense of a loss like that…all we can do is be there for everyone…

“We can talk about the memory of the person, and we can create space in the community to talk about it, so that we don’t grieve in isolation.”

Providing that space is important, Nelson said, because sometimes, internalized grief can lead to anger — and possibly more violence.

“The question is, ‘What do we do with our anger? How do we not let it take us into a terrible place?”

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Community members hold candles Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2020, during a vigil for Jadon Knox on the 700 block of Pendleton Street in Memphis. Knox was killed nearby over the weekend.(Photo: Max Gersh / The Commercial Appeal)

Sadly, a lot of people are already in that terrible place.

More often than not, those who are randomly shooting guns and killing children who get in the way have learned to care so little about their own lives that they don’t care about anyone else’s.

Unfortunately, these are people who have amassed the capacity to lash out and lost the capacity to hope. Children like Jadon, Ashlynn and Lequan are paying the price.

And when no one can make sense of their deaths to other children, that means violence is stealing more than lives here.

It’s stealing childhoods, too.

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Tonyaa Weathersbee can be reached at tonyaa.weathersbee@commercialappeal.com, and you can follow her on Twitter: @tonyaajw